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Get a headstart on your very first home interiors project with this ultimate guide of interior design tips for first-time homeowners.
From eyeing the right furniture for your home to planning a smart space, the world of interior design can be overwhelming for beginners. And quite a few of us feel tired when we can’t come to a conclusion on how we truly want our dream home to look. This is exactly why planning your first home’s interiors and learning the importance of interior design, prior to possession, is essential.
Right from choosing the correct interior design partner to understanding the fundamentals of different interior design elements, there’s a lot to know about interior design. So, this blog will help you better understand the fundamentals of interior design, spatial planning, styling, budget and a lot more! Follow along to know more.
Tips For Hiring An Interior Designer And Choosing The Right Design Partner
If you are a first-time homeowner who is eyeing professional help for your home’s interiors, hiring an interior design firm can be a fun and game-changing experience. However, if you haven’t worked with one before, setting your expectations straight is crucial in this journey from idea to execution. Here are five tips for hiring an interior designer for your home:
Keep your expectations realistic: Taking up a home interior project can be a mammoth task and takes a couple of months to complete considering what your needs for your home are. It’s important to keep it realistic and not be swayed by three-day dream projects as depicted on TV shows.
Take your time: Not every interior design partner is the same; each brings their sense of style and business process. Hence, it’s significant that you and your interior design partner are on the same page. For instance, when getting a free consultation, it is advised that you go through all the details of your home interior plan. This includes costing, timelines, designs and delivery. Ensure that you have gone through every detail with a fine-tooth comb to experience a seamless process.
Communicate your plan: If you have preconceived ideas about your home’s interior project, then it’s important that you share the same with your designer. In short, setting the tone of how you want your home to look and setting expectations straight with respect to your home project is an imperative step and helps avoid confusion in later stages.
Understanding the billing structure: Depending on the kind of project you seek help with, your interior designer will offer you a payment plan and billing structure. This can be a lump sum payment comprising the cost of materials, labour as well as professional fees for the services rendered by the interior design partner.
Crystal clear communication: At the end of it all, understand that crystal clear communication between you and your home interior design partner will pave the way for delivering a home that you truly dreamt of. So, if you have new ideas or thoughts, you are free to share them with your designer.
Why Effective Space Planning Is Important For Your Home
An ideal home interior is one that’s blessed with the desired comfort and easily accommodates everything. Here are some interior design tips for a hassle-free spatial planning experience for your first home.
Room functionality: Learn how each room plays a role in your home. This could be designating exclusive roles to every nook and cranny in your room. For instance, what role does the room play? Is it simply a bedroom or one with an attached walk-in closet? Does it have a dresser area or a work-from-home study unit or both?
Striking a balance: Colour, design, placement, structure and textures play a pivotal role in bringing a sense of balance to any room. Hence, it’s best advised to find the sweet spot between every element for a well-planned home.
Furnishing needs: Mapping the floor for interior design space planning helps understand what kind of space you truly own. This is where you can play around with furnishing ideas to best allocate for a clear open floor plan that does not bite into leg room.
Visual appeal: While the fundamentals of effective space planning are taken care of, it’s also significant to ensure that the visual aesthetics of your room aren’t tossed out of the window. This means creating a visual synergy between your room and its surrounding elements can make or break your room’s decor. So, be wise with what you choose.
Personal touch: While Pinterest can be a great source of inspiration, it’s also important that you add your own flair and personality to your home. This could well mean an ancient vase that you like, a painting you’ve recently purchased or simply choosing patterns and textures that mean something to you.
Lighting preference: If you are in a fix on what lighting suits your home, then you will need to learn a thing or two about lighting preferences. A well-lit home brings life to your home’s interiors and adds dimension to the space. Right from LED lighting to ambient mood lights, install a blend of both, and you are good to go.
How To Determine Your Style For House Interior Design Plans
Knowing your design style can be a fun experience, especially if you are someone that’s enthusiastic about a good interior design flipping. Here are key elements to consider when determining your home interior style:
Take an online quiz: Let’s face it, most of us are confused between understanding different styles (modern v/s contemporary or modern rustic v/s industrial). In cases like these, getting onto an online quiz is a fun way to understand where your preferences lie. Or you can consult a professional interior design partner to help you determine what your true style is.
Look at your space: When you have the results from your online quiz or have a fair understanding after consulting a professional interior design partner, take a good look at your space. This allows you to understand if you want a complete revamp, or do you simply need to spruce up different areas of your home.
Seek inspiration: A good Pinterest board can entice just anyone looking for inspiration. Create a mood board or save pins from ones that you feel would look visually appealing in your home.
Fun Fact: You can also look at Design Cafe’s Pinterest Boards for all your home decor ideas and needs. Click here to get inspired
Shortlist and curate: Once you have your inspiration board ready, you can choose to whittle down ideas to create an exclusive mood board for your current home. This is where you are truly choosing what you’d like every room in your home to look like.
Understanding The Purpose Of The Space Is An Important Interior Design Tip
When rummaging through these home interior design ideas, ensure that you know and understand the purpose of the spaces you are looking to design. The goal of understanding space functionality is to understand and design a space that’s functional and efficient without compromising on the beauty and comfort of your home. Here are four ways to make the most of your space planning endeavours:
Opt for more storage space: This can easily be achieved with the right kind of modular storage solutions that come with designated spots for every item in your house.
Natural colour shades for the wall: Bold, loud pops of colours are an outdated interior design trend. Instead, it’s best to opt for neutral muted colours for your home to bring in an inviting cosy vibe to the place.
Planning spaces as per family activities: Each space or zone in your home has its own specific usages. With that being said, you can look into determining what activity each member of your family is inclined towards and then incorporate that activity within this space.
Installing proper lighting: Lighting plays a significant role in building your home’s personality and ambience. With the right lighting, you have the ability to focus or bring specific areas of your home under a spotlight.
Why Free Space Is Important In House Interior Design Plans
An open free space is often related to the physical and mental health of the home dwellers. With that being said, free and open spaces at home help thrive conversations, bring in comfort and keep it peaceful. Here’s how free spaces help a busy home:
Free recreational space for activities and fun time: An open space can double up as your entertainment or recreational area. A multi-functional space that perfectly incorporates recreational activities for everyone in the household is one that’s designed smartly. This could be a dual space that includes a home theatre alongside a reading nook, a gymnasium alongside a gaming setup, or a music room alongside a creative DIY space. With so much to do, you’re definitely spoilt with choices.
Helps with better designing solutions: Open spaces allow a free flow of design, helping professionals build well-designed zero-waste home spaces. If you have extra space around your home, chances are that your designers will make the most of it to design a comfortable and liveable area for all.
Helps build conversations and bond: Bringing social interactions to life, an open free space drives conversations, helps build bonds and are fun for homes that have frequent guests. Host a house party, call your friends and folks for a fun game night or simply Netflix and chill with your loved ones — the possibilities are endless.
Environmentally beneficial: Open free spaces in your home allow for a free flow of air, light and sound, making it beneficial environmentally and free from a cluttered claustrophobic experience.
An Interior Design Tip For Beginners Is To Avoid Bulky Furnishings
On to the most essential part of homes — furnishings. We know landscaping your home with gleaming furniture can be a tempting thought. It’s a rite of passage for homeowners to have furnishings that transform their house into a home. However, there are certain rules to home interior design and one of them says ‘NO’ to bulky furnishings, here’s why!
Your home looks cluttered: Bulky furniture often ends up taking lots of space and if you are someone who loves to house furniture for every single thing at home, you may end up losing a serious amount of legroom or floor space. Instead, you can choose to invest in sleek and smart minimalist furniture and modular storage solutions to embrace the visual aesthetic of your home whilst keeping it fully functional and comfortable at the same time.
Doesn’t appeal to the visual aesthetics of your home: Bulky furniture, more often than not, ends up killing the visual appeal of your home. They are good for open large homes, but for compact Indian apartments, they can be quite an eyeful. Hence, look into what textures, patterns and finishes you are choosing for your home alongside creating a mood board that brings your imagination to life.
Pick Materials And Finishes As Per Your Lifestyle And Activities
Your home’s interiors should incorporate materials, finishes, patterns and textures depending on your lifestyle and activity. For parents with young children, well-rounded furniture with minimal edges helps prevent accidents at home. For the kitchen’s wet area, it’s advised to look into materials that are heat and water-resistant, durable and easy to maintain. Here’s a quick look at the different types of materials and finishes in home interior design:
Materials used in home decor: The core substance used to construct the structure of furniture in modular furnishing is made of highly-engineered materials such as commercial plywood, high-density fiberboard (HDF), medium-density fiberboard (MDF), boiling water-proof plywood (BWP), high-density high moisture resistance (HDHMR). These materials are made of wood composites that are engineered to achieve structural integrity and durability.
Finishes used in home decor: Finishes are elements fixed onto the final structure of furniture. These are used to protect the furniture from varied circumstances like impact, corrosion, stain, abrasion, frost and even water. The finishes are used to create a certain sense of style, colour, texture and uniqueness to the modular furniture in order to build a thematic design for the room. Some of the finishes used in modular furniture are laminates, acrylics, veneer, clear glass and lacquered glass.
Read this guide to learn the role different materials and finishes play in your home.
Interior Design Tips For Seeking The Right Inspiration
Interior design comes in varied styles and inspirations, namely, classic and traditional, modern and contemporary, rustic and industrial, and so on. When you are curating your home’s mood board, it’s imperative to stick to a style that resonates with you. Do you want a touch of modernism in your Indian traditional home? Are you a fan of Scandinavian minimalism yet need a hint of neutral bohemian vibes? Chances are, you may have a palate for more than one home interior design style and that is totally normal.
Detailed v/s minimalist: A traditional Indian home interior style is one that boasts intricacy, details and fine patterns. This kind of interior style grabs the attention to a certain focal point and is wise for larger homes. Whilst a minimalist home works on a clean slate and does not include intricate details and patterns. It’s subtle to the eye and allows for a free flow of thoughts. This kind of interior design style is perfect for compact apartments and small homes.
Bulky v/s sleek: Bulky furniture can be a large armchair, a tufted headboard, a display furniture that’s protruding out of the walls or simply a giant table that fits all your accessories. Bulky can often create the illusion of clutter and is best avoided for compact apartments. Sleek designs and modular storage solutions, however, bring a sense of functionality and aesthetics to the space, making it a fine choice amongst homeowners.
Vibrant v/s neutral: Depending on your style and needs, you can choose between a vibrant popping home or a neutral muted hue home. A vibrant home resembles a colourful boho vibe and is a playful, cheery palate whilst a neutral muted hued home offers a tranquil, comforting experience and is often synonymous with peaceful, meditative palates.
While all of this is said and done, the best way to bring the home of your dreams to life is by hiring the right interior design partner. You can do so by booking a free consultation with our expert designers at Design Cafe. Make the most of this guide to explain how and what you want your home to look like and step into the world of interior design with a bang!
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